Did the President really say that?

In reply to Rabbit;

No, I am not claiming it is right to bring children up with a hatred of protestants/British. I am however saying that at least there was some foundation, relating to recent Irish history, for my grandparents to have instilled it in my parents, or at least instilled a caution; "beware the horn of a bull and the smile of an Englishman".

No, I do not feel there is a comparison (in your own words "what the Brits/Prods did to the Catholics") to the Jewish/Nazi situation.

What McAleese was suggesting that hatred uncontrolled can and could have led to such things. Do you honestly not feel that the mass burnings of Catholics homes in Belfast in the early seventies was not comparable to the German persecution of the Jews in the late thirties?

Talk to a resident of Shannon, a town built on these refugees (the largest European migration of peoples since WW2).
If the Irish government did not step in, or, if the Catholics did not have a Southern refuge, I firmly believe that mass murder of Catholics would have been the next step. Have you reason to believe not, or was it just a house burning exercise?

Asimov wrote that I suggested that McAleese said Protestants are Nazis. This is untrue : you should read her what is written more carefully. What she did imply was that all Protestants bring up their children to hate Catholics, in the way that Nazis hated Jews. A bit rich, do you not think, given our track record for helping the Jews in WW2 ? Never mind when the redemtorists hunted and burnt the Jews out of Limerick in the 30's.

Ocras, you claim you yourself think their is no comparison to between Protestant attitudes to Catholics , and Nazi attitudes to Jews, then why did our president, who is supposed to be above politics, mention this specifically , on the day of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auchwitz ?
Is she that bigoted against the Protestants, or is she that ignorant of the holocaust, or both ?

You mention "mass burnings of Catholic homes in the seventies". What percentage of the overall housing stock was this? I know it was wrong, but if she wants to mention it, why not mention some of the Protestant homes that were burnt as well, and there were plenty.

Closer to home, why did she not look at some events in our own countrys history : many things happened in the 26 counties since its foundation which were also similar to incidents in the Germany of the 30's.

OK. I'll translate. High-profile politicians/Heads of State attend international functions and/or significant memorial events three or four times in any week, throughout the year. For some even their choice of holiday location is 'political' in the broadest sense of the word, and usually in the narrower (i.e. they will fit in a couple of dinner-engagements or visits to significant peers).

If you read the autobiographies of statespeople, political activists and world leaders/opinion-formers in any field this is the description of her/his life.

OK so far?

There are "official" speeches and presentations which are worked on by large teams of people (P.R. and press departments).

On the whole nobody - apart from professors of political history and people writing PhD's on particular policy issues - listens much to the content of these dry unimaginative and extremely-carefully crafted offerings.

To temper these soul-excoriating bottom-line-scanned-by-the-lawyers pronouncements some doughty persons occasionally depart from the script slightly in order to introduce a more human, more personal note.

Ms McAleese in attempting to communicate a sense of solidarity towards events which are so horrific that the descendents of the deathcamp Jews feel alone with it and outside of common understanding, tried, in effect, to say:-

"We know a little of how you feel. All societies - including ours - carry within themselves those irrational and deadly elements of hate sectarianism exploitation and aggression towards the religious and cultural beliefs and aspirations of other individuals and groups out of which unspeakable horror may evenuate."

At which point the group she identified as manifesting these characteristics attack her as a lying destructive sectarian NIC 'holy mary'.

Well there you go! She was WRONG, WRONG WRONG!

Marion - Thank you for your balanced post which I liked very much. My family had similarly ambiguous pressures and influences and I got a healthily "mixed bag" of impressions depending on which individual was tutoring!

My grandmother, widowed very young with 12 children ensured their nourishment and survival through a job as a domestic in what was then The Royal Hospital (now The Museum of Modern Art) and during the way the cooks slipped her the occasional joint of meat free for the family table. Later as an adolescent I had bitter arguments with older members of my family about this dependency. They valued "the English soldiers" billeted there and were grateful.

Three of my uncles fought in WWI in the British Army and had a very tough time in their neighbourhood which one of them did not survive as well as he had survived under fire. He became morose and reclusive and now a very old man remains so still.

The biggest arguments in the family were over "An Teanga". So many working-class and farming people had to go to England for work during the recession there was anger that so much time and energy was spent on what was contemptuously called "a dead language" when they could have been better equipped with vocational skills which would have lifted them out of the souldestroying manual jobs they all went to (all but two incidentally, were happily able to return to Ireland later in life). I loved the language and spent every childhood summer in the Gaeltacht. Perhaps the ambivalence in the family was the reason I was such a bag of nerves I couldn't "get Irish in the Leaving Cert" and in my turn had to emigrate in order to get anywhere with my life.

At age 15 as the oldest of 3 with very little money my parents asked me to leave my scholarship place in the Secondary school and go to secretarial college so I was the family "insurance" against destitution.

This I willingly did. The secretarial colleage I attended was a Protestent establishment. Neighbours stopped my mother in the street to tell her we would - as a family - suffer hellfire in the afterlife and excommunication in this for our defection. My mother's answer was "It's the BEST secretarial college. That's why we've chosen that one".

The world's suffering would be halved if only people would engage common-sense and treat the cranked-up emotionalism of begrudgery as what it is.............

Again - thank you for your heartwarming post!

Marie said "Ms McAleese in attempting to communicate a sense of solidarity towards events which are so horrific that the descendents of the deathcamp Jews feel alone with it and outside of common understanding, tried, in effect, to say...... "

We know what she said. Who is she to "attempt to communicate a sense of solidarity towards events like the holocaust" by comparing Nazi attitudes to Jews with the way people ( presumably Protestants , since Catholics are not taught to hate Catholics ) in Northern Ireland are taught to hate Catholics? Does she have any understanding of the holocaust ? It was not just Jews who were exterminated, it was gypsies, disabled people, homosexuals etc as well. The Jews know they were not the only victims and so do not feel alone with it, as you say.


McAleese let the mask slip to reveal something so sectarian it was an incitrid to hatred. She did not qualify her statement by saying SOME people, or some people on both sides or whatever.

Marie, as you admit she was "wrong, wrong, wrong", do you not agree she should resign, resign, resign?

Marion said "Some of my friends who were Catholic and Protestant habited with a protestant rector and his wife. On one occasion, the rector and his wife were discussing social events that were about to take place in another town. They turned to their Catholic housemate and said " of course, this doesn't involve you". They were talking about social events involving protestant young people only. Obviously, a good looking Catholic need not apply!

In the same vein, my then boss tried his best to exclude protestants from social events and tried to (unsuccessfully) instill catholic values in a mulitdenominational school. He was what one would term a "black catholic" in the same way that the rector was a "black protestant" - eventhough, they were both otherwise very likeable characters. "

I do not think the rector was a Quote "black protestant" unquote , if he was referring to a private social event organised by his church. As you were not a member of his church, never mind a parishoner, you take this as equivalent to your then boss ( possibly the headmaster ? ) trying to instill catholic values in multidenominational school ?

Perhaps if you understood the deep hurt and damage that has been caused over the years by the Catholic church instilling her values in mixed marriages, then you would understand the situation better.

Rabbit, what I claimed was that the same type of hatred that was shown towards Catholics was similar to the 1930's German one towards Jews, and unapproached, these hatreds can escalate to genocide.

She had every right to mention it, as she would have, if she had mentioned Serbs and Kosovans, Yankee States and Negroes, Hutus and Tutsis, De Valera/McQuaid and Jews.................and so on.

Can you not see that she took only one of the above examples, in it's most simplistic form?

I understood that in that particular small community where I worked that the people got on together superficially and that in some families there was a still deep fear of mixed marriages and all the issues arising from this. Hence both sides of the community were protecting their children from mixing socially with each other.

Many of these issues were not just religion based, but concerned the transfer of land and property. It wasn’t seen as a total disaster if a female protestant married a male catholic, because in general, the land and property would automatically transfer to the males in her family.

Some families responded to the mixed marriage situation by bringing up the girls as catholic and the boys as protestant thereby preserving the land line - this is a position which would have existed pre ne temere.

The Ne Temere decree by the catholic church was extremely harsh on those who have very strong beliefs in their religion and there is no doubt that it helped to maintain the divisions between the communities and helped the decline in the number of protestants in the country. It is right that it was abolished. I was referring to a time where the ne temere no longer existed.

Marion :hat

Rabbitt - that last sentence about Ms. McAleese's public comments "She was WRONG WRONG WRONG!" was intended to be sarcastic. However sarcasm is a low form of wit, one which I do not usually need to resort to and I offer my apologies; the attempt at wit has created even further confusion and sense of outrage.

Would it be possible for you to accept that in trying to have a discussion on matters which involve private issues experienced as vulnerability - personal and tribal - others are not intentionally wounding in merely describing their own (different!) experience, or their own (different!) understanding of public events such as Ms. McAleese's remarks which have generated exchanges about past misunderstandings and divisions. Such exchanges in themselves are not initially healing and deeply-embedded wrongs hurt more when the process of reconciliation begins. That is in the nature of things and there is no way around it.

If anything in my own comments - either on an earlier thread or this present one - have given you the impression that they are intended personally or injuriously, or that I hate or want to wipe out Protestants (or any other group, or any other individual) then accept that is not so but rather my aim and hope is to discuss and explore issues and events which worry and concern all and which everyone would like to change so that the future need not resemble the past, and that in the future we can have freedom and steer clear of fascism. That desirable outcome is determined by how we act now........and it is necessary to hear and tolerate the views and experiences of others before they can be processed and transcended.

The trouble is, Mrs McAleese did not "merely describe their own (different!) experience" as you put it.

Her exact words were " They ( the Nazis ) gave to their children an irrational hatred of Jews in the same way the people in Northern Ireland transmitted to their children an irrational hatred of Catholics ". A friend in Australia heard the remarks and said there are those in Australia who are wondering why she has not resigned yet, after making such a sectarian statement and only giving a Sinn Fein type apology a day and a half later. ( It was wrong but it was not criminal / I am sorry I said it but....)

She has tarred a community of a million people with the same brush, without saying a bad word about her own community.
Some Germans I was talking to today say that she has ridiculed her office, and also insulted those other people who died in the concentration camps ( eg gypsies ) by comparing the situation in N. Ireland with that in Hitlers Germany. I thought this was interesting, as normally these German friends do not speak about WW2 much.

Now Rabbit, you are being really unfair. You have doctored a quote to suit your own viewpoint.

I listened to her remark, and as I have said before, the critical words were "for example", to which she paused and made a comparison to Northern Protestants.

Secondly, I don't see what your German friends viewpoints have to do with this discussion. Do they now set the benchmark in relation to fact and discussion on the holocaust?

>She has tarred a community of a million people with the same brush, without saying a bad word about her own community.& Marion are making very good sense. I heard the interview on the radio and took no offense at it, either as a Hiberno-German nor as a (brought-up-)Prod(-but-now-atheist). Hatred is a huge problem in all societies, and unfortunately we indocrinate our children with our attitudes as parents. Some people have remarkably thin skins or actively go seeking offense where none is intended, were my thoughts in response to this storm in a teacup; how do they survive in the hurly-burly of family life?

"They [the Nazis] gave to their children an irrational hatred of Jews in the same way, for example, that people in Northern Ireland transmitted to their children an irrational hatred of Catholics."

I have a newspaper in front of me and this is what. I heard her on the radio, and knew immediately she had made a big mistake. Imagine the uproar if the Queen , on the anniversary of 1916, compared the hatred of the Nazis towards Jews as being in the same way that people in Ireland transmitt to their children a hatred of Protestants and / or England ?

Hatred is a problem in all societies, but is it our Presidents job - even at 240,000 per year plus perks I believe - to compare Nazism with the conflict in this country? And if she does, is it fair that she blames the other community for the hatred. Should she not have mentioned her own as well ?

I was talking to a friend across the border in N. Ireland last night, and he said his little girl was watching the news. Mrs McAleese came on, and compared the Nazis hatred towards Jews as being like the way her Daddy alledgedy taught her to hate Catholics. She cried " But Daddy, why is that woman telling lies? We dont hate Catholics "

Ocras said " I don't see what your German friends viewpoints have to do with this discussion. Do they now set the benchmark in relation to fact and discussion on the holocaust? "

Nobody said they set the benchmark, but I thought it was interesting and thought provoking. I do not think we in Ireland generally understand the holocaust, and because Mrs McAleeses remarks were directed in the direction of " our auld enemy " we, as a country fail to recognise the surprise and disappointment her remarks in compared Nazis to Northern Protestants caused in certain quarters outside this state.

It is the same as the statue to the IRA leader / Nazi callaborator Sean Russell, who died on a u-boat, which is erected here in a public space in this state. It has not provoked much debate in the dail, but it has attracted attention from Europe, as there are not too many statues of people who co-operated with Nazism around.

President's comments

Anyone who doesn't agree that some Protestants are brought to hate Catholics in NI should check out Ian Paisley's own official website - and hear it straight from the horse's mouth as it were. I know it's been said before but this man has an awful lot to answer for.

I'm actually glad this President has said something of note for once - the reaction to her comments has been totally over the top.

Re: President's comments

Everyone is missing a very important point here. The intolerance and hatred of jews instilled in children was not in itself the holocaust, the holocaust merely stemmed from that intolerance.

So to say that someone is passing on intolerance to their children in the same way that Nazi's did is not to say that those people are "As Bad as" or even "comparable to" Nazi's.

It seems very obvious to me that her point was about intolerance and that 60 years on we haven't learned even the most basic lessons from the treatment of European Jews.

I know politics is politics and media is media and it can be very useful to "misinterpret" or "spin" someones words. But can we not all apply a bit of common sense here.

There are biggoted intolerant people in Northern Ireland. Occasionally that spills over into family events such as the infamous July 12th speaches. I have no doubt that she had those specific events in her mind when she made the comments.

It's a pity she didn't have the presence of mind to point out the bigotry in some catholics, but do we really have to point out the flaws in everyone equally all of the time. Are we really that dumb that we can't even discuss protestant bigotry (which incidently is deeply embarrasing to the many decent protestants who shy away from 12th speak).

-Rd

Re: President's comments

I agree with daltonr and in particular with Marie's excellent earlier post. Ethnic, tribal or racial violence rarely springs from nowhere. In the case of the Nazi's we all know about the control they exercised over the education system and the media in 1930's Germany. In the case of the Rwandan genocide the Hutu power movement used what was called "hate radio" and other media tools over a period of years to sow and grow the seeds of their mass murder. The entrenched positions on the fringes on both sides in the north are no different in their insidious unspoken acceptance of bigotry. Others here are more qualified than I to give examples.
People choose to frame Mary McAleese's comments in the context of their own position and their perceived opinion of her position. Personally I agree with her general point while accepting that she choose bad examples to back them up.

Re: Missing the main event

RTE got a scoop and on the 8.0c news that morning they gave major coverage to what they had elicited from our President - but not a word about the "prods are Nazis" thing until the 1.0c news when we hear that the produce of the good Doctors's loins had taken great offence at that line.

RTE had correctly spotted that the main event was that Mary could not condemn Dev for his Nazopilia. She's a luck woman that the sideshow, which was clearly just a freudian slip, dominated the subsequent coverage - it was easy to retract that one but to say anything bad about Dev - a total no-no.

Re: Missing the main event

...to say anything bad about Dev - a total no-no.

Click to expand...

I don't think there is much of a devotion to Saint Dev in any quarter anymore. Neil Jordan's Michael Collins biopic went out of its way to portray Dev as being directly implicated in Collins' assassination and (as far as I remember) this caused no controversy whatsoever. Indeed commentators such as Conor Cruise O'Brien were left to wonder why the likes of Bertie Ahern didn't take up the cudgels in moral support of FF's late founder. More recently Dev's motivations in setting up the Irish Press as a family owned company, financed by donations from the public, were questioned on an RTE documentary - again with zero reaction from any pro-Dev lobby.

Re: Missing the main event

It would be completely inappropriate for the President to criticise the then Taoisech. Dev had many faults but his high standing within the Jewish community both before and after the war speaks for itself.
The justice and foreign affairs ministries were the ones who pushed for not letting any refugees in. Remember that the full story of what was happening in Nazi occupied Europe was not known at the time and Ireland had unemployment at over 20%, mass emigration and slums galore. It's too easy to judge people in the context of 60 or 70 years of hindsight.